Typically when an individual orders one or more items from an online retailer that online retailer assigns the fulfillment of that order to one or more nodes, which can be a fulfillment center or a retail store that is capable of fulfilling orders from the retail store itself This assignment typically only takes into account availability of the ordered item or items at the node or nodes, or the shipping cost of the ordered item or items from the node or nodes.
The typical assignment cannot take into account various other potential impacts on the fulfillment process, such as a loyalty reward to the specific customer placing the order.
What is desired is a system and method that can determine a trade off between rewarding customer loyalty and total cost to serve that customer when determining item-node fulfillment of a specific online order.